Chelsea Tactics and Transfers: Are people still arguing Lampard vs. Gerrard?

With the absence of football many media types have posted their version of all-time Premier League teams. In doing so they have reawakened a timelessly futile debate: Who was a better player, Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard?

Most of the time, the addition of Steven Gerrard to “all-time XI’s” is nothing more than a compensatory handout to the genuine history of Liverpool Football Club. Liverpool are so important to the history and culture of British football that people feel inclined to include them in things. But that does not alleviate the responsibility of those Liverpool zealots who have somehow magically appeared during the club’s most successful Premier League era to approach this with more than “but Stevie just had it bro” or “Stevie G was inspiring bruv.”

I understand the passion of supporting a club in it’s best ever period. Of course I do. I became a Chelsea supporter under Ken Bates, right before Roman Abramovich bought the club – back when the club was worried about Eidur Gudjhonssen’s salary and they couldn’t afford to entice Gianfranco Zola to stay.

I do truly understand your giddy excitement at being a Liverpool supporter at the moment. I also know that many of you only have the footballing knowledge of what has been right in front of you for about six months.

Chelsea supporters did the same thing for a period under Jose Mourinho. We were so taken with our side and our way at the time that we sought to rewrite history plenty.

All that said, one thing is wholly self-evident: Frank Lampard was a better player than Steven Gerrard.

There’s little explanation outside of emotion or possible inbreeding that can be had on thinking otherwise. Particularly if we’re talking about just the Premier League, this shouldn’t even be a matter of discussion.

“What about Istanbul?” Well, OK, Istanbul proves the point. There’s just Istanbul in Gerrard’s column. Without it, Mr. Gerrard would simply be a man who came close one time and during that one time actually cost his team the title during a match against the other gentleman in discussion. That’s all.

Steven Gerrard was a magnificent, artful and often heroic player. Of course he was, no one has ever argued anything any differently. Frank Lampard was just better.

The statistics are not even all that comparable. Frank Lampard scored 177 goals in the Premier Premier League. That’s more than Thierry Henry, Michael Owen,  Didier Drogba and Harry Kane. All of those men are strikers, and Frank Lampard outscored them from midfield, where he never shirked a tackle or his defensive duties.

Steven Gerrard’s 120 goals isn’t a bad total but it is still far off of Lampard’s.

In his Chelsea career, Lampard scored 211 goals.  For West Ham he scored another 39 and in his retiring season at Manchester City he still scored another eight.  In total for all his clubs across all appearances Lampard scored an incredible 258 goals.

While at Liverpool, Steven Gerrard scored 186.  If Steven Gerrard scored 20 goals a season, a feat he only managed three times compared to Lampard’s five, for another three years he still wouldn’t catch Lampard.

What sets Lampard further apart in the debate is that he also had 102 assists in the Premier League compared to Gerrard’s 92.

While Steven Gerrard never won the Premier League, he won the Champions League once. Frank Lampard won the Premier League three times, and won the Champions League.

There will be debate over whose European victory was harder. AC Milan in Istanbul was one of the best matches of all time, there’s no doubting that.

One, though, stands a chance of standing higher. Chelsea’s victory over the soon to be quadruple winning Bayern Munich. The best squad in the history of that club and to do it in Munich? Once again Lampard at least matches Gerrard there in historic importance to an all-time victory.

The only place where Steven Gerrard is statistically stronger than Frank Lampard is for England. Gerrard had an impressive 114 caps and 21 goals for the Three Lions, compared to Frank Lampard’s 106 appearances and… wait… 29 goals? In fewer appearances Lampard was still more effective? So Gerrard actually loses there, too.

But we needn’t go on only about statistics. After all, individual awards are important.

Steven Gerrard had an incredible year in 2005. He was the first English player to be on a Ballon d’Or podium since Michael Owen won in 2001 and David Beckham came second in 1999. In 2005, he came third in the Ballon d’Or race after Ronaldinho and… guess who? Frank Lampard.

The only time the two of them were voted for at such a high level, Lampard again came out victorious.

Let’s do the same then for England. All England performances must admittedly be taken with a grain of salt because we can all acknowledge their generation underperformed. To have either Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard, let alone both, was a blessing. Any other side would have won every trophy available with that level of talent.

In South Africa under Fabio Capello when they were at their best was a great example. Gerrard was captain of that team. But when England lost to Germany to exit the tournament, who was it that scored the disallowed match-changing ghost goal that played a major part in ushering in VAR technology because the entire world saw the injustice of the matte? That was, again, Frank Lampard.

The big argument often in Steven Gerrard’s case is that he was often incredibly unlucky with injuries. If it wasn’t a hamstring, it was his foot, and if not his foot, it was his knee or a troublesome ankle.

He spent huge spells of every season injured and so wasn’t able to be that effective in the overall outcomes.

Excuses, though, can’t be made for injuries. Cristiano Ronaldo has often stated that he hasn’t played without pain since he was a child.

Frank Lampard was the Premier League’s Mr. Consistent. He holds the record for the outfield player with the most consecutive appearances, at 164. That’s four seasons without missing a single Premier League game, and that’s not to say he didn’t get injured. Lampard just in true heroic fashion sucked it up.

He, in fact, once broke his toe in a match and continued to play. Yes, a footballer, Frank Lampard, played football with a broken bone in his foot.

Much of the reason for the fact that Steven Gerrard often gets credit in these debates is mainly down to how he played and who he played for.

He was an exciting player and Liverpool are a very important and box office club.  It would feel weird making a list of all-time Premier League players without a single player from Liverpool. But in the end, a choice must be made.

Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard were two of the most similar players ever. They were both so good that it was hard to make a choice even when that is exactly what should have been done and what a strong manager would have done. Sven-Goran Eriksson cost England a couple World Cups and European Championships by not doing precisely that.

An England midfield in 2006 of Beckham on the right where he belonged, Michael Carrick and Frank Lampard in the middle and Stewart Downing on the left would have been fine. In 2010, a three of Carrick, Barry and Lampard would have been glorious. Then you have Steven Gerrard to come off the bench against tired players and destroy them.

Their similarity tricks people into thinking there’s more room for debate here. No one is saying anything bad about Steven Gerrard here.

In races like this, Liverpool’s importance to the history of the game and the volume of their public persona elevates Gerrard whereas anti-Chelsea bias degrades Lampard. That, though, doesn’t actually mean anything about them as players.

Steven Gerrard was an amazing player, one of the true delights of the Premier League for a long time.

Frank Lampard was simply better in every single respect. That’s why he won the league more times, scored more times, assisted more times and played in it more times.

Frank Lampard is likely the best player to have ever played in the Premier League, so there’s little shame in the fact that he was a better player than Steven Gerrard. He was better than many others, too.